


Choices We Make

by NikitaHawkeye



Category: Trese (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:43:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikitaHawkeye/pseuds/NikitaHawkeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm dead, little one. The battle belongs to you now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices We Make

“Surprised, Alexandra?”

_Hell if she wasn’t._ Alexandra blinked at the reflection for several times before she was certain that this wasn’t some sort of illusion or dream. Her grip on the coffee mug tightened after feeling it slip from her grasp.

“I shouldn’t be. I deal with the unknown, after all.”

The man on the reflection chuckled, a rich, baritone laugh of which the sound she had forgotten over the years. Even in her memories, she couldn’t quite get the sound right, and she never expected a reminder until now. “I’ve missed you, child,” he says, with a soft look in his usually cold eyes.

She turned around and finally met the man’s gaze. 

_It was her father, all right._

“Did you need something,” she paused and then added thoughtfully, “’Tay?”

“What, a man can’t say hello to his daughter? You’ve gotten so tall, Alexandra.”

She raised her brow at his reply. “And you look pretty good for someone who died years ago. But we both know that’s not why you’re here, so please cut to the chase.”

Anton chuckled again in amusement and seated himself on one of the old chintz chair in her room. Alexandra mused at how even in death, her father still held himself regally, even while sitting on a ratty chair. She was interrupted from her musings when the man gestured at the chair beside her and motioned for her to do the same.

“Coffee?” She asked, but he just shook his head at the offer. “Believe me,” he said, “I just wanted a little chat with you, child.”

When she was young, she often found herself being scolded by her father, curious child that she was, and her father usually started his sermons with a dreadful line: “we need to talk.” That line would often be accompanied by a grave, threatening tone that always sent a chill down her spine. 

Hearing him say it again after many years, even without the frightening tone, still gave the same effect. 

_But what can he do, send you to your room? You’re not a little girl anymore, Alexandra. Suck it up._

She cleared her throat and composed her words. “Is this about the Madame? Because I can assure you—“

“Oh, no,” Anton waved his hand in a dismissing gesture and continued, “I have no right to interfere with that matter anymore. I’m dead, little one. That battle belongs to you now.”

“Then why…?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, really,” he gazed at her almost wistfully, like he was recalling something in the corner of his eyes, “I guess I just wanted to be a father, even for a short while.”

Alexandra eyed him warily. “You have nothing to be guilty of, Tatay. You have taught me everything I needed to learn.”

He sighed. “No, I didn’t.  All I did was shape you into a warrior.”

_Like I’m meant to be,_ she wanted to add. She grew up knowing that she was entrusted with a grand responsibility, and said responsibility was hers alone. She wasn’t cut out for any other life but this, and she was aware of that from the beginning.

“I made you live a lonely life,” he continued, “when I know that it’s not supposed to go like that.”

“Happiness is a luxury I don’t need,” she said like it was the simplest thing to say, “I have a mission to do, and I’m going to see it through. The fate of the world lies in my hands.”

Anton smiled a knowing smile. “Oh, my dear child.”

Suddenly, with a sweep of motion, the scenery in front of her turned into a giant whirl of colors, and then it was replaced by a sight she never wished to see in her whole life.

Dystopia. It was the only word that came to her mind upon surveying the horrifying scene.  The red moon illuminated the blood that seemed to splash _everywhere._ Cadavers of various creatures lay on the ground, their mouths agape and their necks hanging from their shoulders like broken branches. Fissures cracked everywhere, threatening to split the earth into tiny little mounds of rock. 

But nothing from these compared to the scene in the middle of it all.

There she was, sitting on a throne of skulls and skeletons, a wicked smile adorning her painted lips. She looked older, with grey streaks peppering her hair, and the wrinkled on her face only seemed to add to the sinister aura she emitted from her throne. The twins stand guard behind her, their masks filled with horrendous scratches and streaks of dried blood. 

Alexandra couldn’t take her eyes off of her.

_That is not me. That will never be me._ “That—“ 

But the scenery changed again before she could voice her thoughts. 

It was an aged version of her again, but this time, there were no blood or skulls or skeletons that can be seen anywhere.

She was sitting on a plastic chair (no skeletal throne this time), with a newspaper and a mug of black coffee in front of her. She seemed to be sitting in a table in Diabolical, or in a bar-less version of it, anyway. 

The woman that is her (and not her at the same time) kept flipping through the pages with a bored look on her face, and Alexandra couldn’t help but find what is wrong in the scene.

_But isn’t this what you wanted,_ she asked herself, _a peaceful world, after a successful battle against evil?_

“Why—“

_Why are you showing this to me_ was what she wanted to say, but like earlier, another round of sweeping colors and shapes washed over everything, and the scenery changed once again.

The place appeared to be in Diabolical again, but this time, it seemed like a bigger and livelier version of it. The room was filled with laughing people, and after composing herself, she finally recognized the faces in the crowd.

The source of the laughter appeared to be her brother, an older Carlito, who was doing some sort of obnoxious gestures while relaying a story that she couldn’t quite make out. Chuckling behind the bar was an aged Hank, his wrinkles hiding behind his laugh lines. The rest of the audience, apparently, was the whole of the Executioner’s Squad, sniggering on their drinks, some of them holding their stomach in laughter, and there was the older version of her smiling at a man—

—and then her eyes zoomed in on the child peeking out from the man’s broad shoulder.

The child that is _a spitting image of her._

Same hairline, same button nose and same piercing eyes… only the child was an infant version of her.

They locked gazes for a second, and then the child yawned and pulled the ponytail of the man who was carrying her.

_Isn’t that_ —

“Choices we make,” her father suddenly whispered in her ear, and she almost jumped out of her skin. The scene in front of her finally faded, and she was back in her room once again, complete with the ghost of her father still sitting regally on her chintz chair.

_“Why?”_

It was the only thing she was able to say coherently.

“Because you’re in a great crossroad of your life, and the choices you will make from this point on will drastically affect your future.” 

“I will not fail,” she says, a little forceful, “there is only one future for me.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” replies her father, now standing up and walking towards her, “I’m only teaching you the most important lesson I was never able to impart to you.” 

“And that is?”

He reached for her shoulders and looked at her square in the eyes.

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

He vanished into thin air.


End file.
